Context Matters

Picture it: 

Greensboro, North Carolina. 

July 2025. 

Mennonites wall-to-wall singing in four-part harmony. 

Kansas Mennonites. California Mennonites. Vermont Mennonites. Florida Mennonites. Arizona Mennonites. Pennsylvania Mennonites. Black Mennonites. Asian Mennonites. White Mennonites. Latine Mennonites. Arab Mennonites.

Old Mennonites, young Mennonites, infant Mennonites, middle-aged Mennonites. Tired Mennonites. Enthused Mennonites. Gay Mennonites, transgender Mennonites, cis-het Mennonites. New Mennonites. 50th generation Mennonites. Us.

Here a Mennonite. There a Mennonite. Everywhere a Mennonite, Mennonite!  

I overheard at least a few attendees comment they had never been in a room with so many Mennonites. Yes. This is the heart of MennoCon: gathering across contexts to explore The Way of Jesus, community, and peacebuilding together.

Whether people call the fizzy drink soda, pop, coke, fountain drink, refresco, or cola, in their home states, we can all agree that the world is a particularly heartbreaking place right now. All the more reason we need to gather and we need one another.

For just under a week every other year, we temporarily release the debate over “peh-con” vs. “pea-can” as the correct pronunciation of pecan, in favor of faith-fueled unity. Unity indeed! All four voted measures during the delegate session overwhelmingly passed, with a nearly unanimous vote in approval of the revised and amended Churchwide Statement on Immigration. Solidarity means recognizing one’s own needs for surviving and thriving interwoven with another’s. We share one united “we” when we gather as siblings of one God.

We are Mennonites. We live in this world. We care. We follow Jesus, Prince of Peace. We come from different contexts and those contexts are important, even sacred. While my context as a first generation Mennonite, Queer woman, Elder Millenial, parent of a young child who lives in the American Southwest is quite different from many others in attendance, I am Mennonite and my presence matters. 

I am thankful to have represented Mennonite Women at MennoCon 25. Women, including Mennonite women, intersect with all contexts. I am perhaps even more thankful to have space made for who and what I am and to see space made for siblings in faith like me, not like me, and kinda like me.

Between now and Cincinnati MennoCon 27, Lord willing, I will continue showing up in my body and in my constellation of contexts. I hope you will show up in your body and contexts, too. Apart or in the same literal room, we belong together as Mennonites of many contexts. 

Erica Lea-Simka

MW USA Southwest Representative

Grant Director, New Mexico Conference of Churches

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Mennonite Women USA values what all women have to say, and Women's Voices blog is a space to honor their words.

Posts are reviewed for tolerance and respect but don't necessarily reflect MW USA's official position.

Women's Voices blog is a community journal published monthly. Read the archives for past reflections by diverse women: https://www.mennonitewomenusa.org/blog and consider offering a piece about your own story of faith: https://www.mennonitewomenusa.org/post/call-for-writers.